American polls bad news for Canada, Trudeau

WASHINGTON, September 13, 2016 — Actress Amy Schumer announced last week that if Donald Trump wins the presidential election in November, she will leave the country. She joins Lena Dunham, Miley Cyrus, Whoopi Goldberg, Barbra Streisand, Raven-Symoné and other entertainment figures who have given millions of Americans a reason to vote for Trump.

This has had unsettling effects in Ottawa and in Chappaqua. As unpopular as Clinton is with conservatives, Schumer, Dunham, Streisand et al. are viewed as a cultural blight. According to recent polls, the expectation that Dunham might leave boosts likely Trump turnout by a critical three points, and even wins him a few Democrats.

Clinton is still favored to win the election, however, and a growing number of conservatives, forgetting that Canada is more liberal than San Francisco, have claimed that they’ll head north if she does. Those conservatives tend to be less well known than the prospective Clinton ex-pats, so Clinton gets no corresponding electoral boost from their threatened departure. But their numbers are significant.

And in Ottawa, worrying.

A source close to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reports that the PM has taken off his shirt and hunkered down with his staff for urgent meetings.

“Of course they’re concerned,” reports Terry, the Canadian Minister of Health. “I mean, my God, have you seen the numbers?”

His reference is to the millions of Americans planning to relocate to Canada regardless of which candidate wins. Beelzaboot, Canadian Minister of Mobile Games, explains that government projections show that the American tide could become a tsunami. “Oh, yes, it’s a disaster,” he laughs. “Canada is about to become hell on earth. The president is already at the border to check plans to build a wall.”

Trump, who famously supports building a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico, has expressed anger over the proposed Canadian wall. Americans may view his position as hypocritical, but Beelzaboot’s assistant, Mr. Stkrdknmibalz, points out that Trump’s opposition is probably part of a longer game.

“You don’t understand what’s got the PM in such a funk,” he says. “We believe that both Trump and Clinton are agreed on this; whichever wins the presidency, the other will move to Canada. And with his or her supporters moving there in large numbers, Trudeau’s job is on the line. Within a year, our new PM could be Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.”

The American candidates’ campaigns reject that notion, but Stkrdknmibalz, a highly respected Canadian language instructor before moving to Ottawa, points out that Clinton’s accent is showing clear signs of intensive study of the Canadian language. “People say, ‘oh, she’s neurologically impaired, eh.’ But that’s not much different than the effects of struggling with Canadian.”

Sisters Katherine and Katie Queef agree. “And it’s not just Clinton. We hear that Trump has taken on Scott the Dick as one of his advisors. He was probably the most influential member of Saddam Hussein’s team, during the unpleasantness.”

The presence of Dick on his staff would be strong evidence that Trump is looking at Canada as his fallback position, according to the Queefs. Clinton herself says heatedly, “look, you’re all busy speculating about my health, eh, and ignoring the real story about Trump. If I had Dick, that’s all you’d talk about. This is just the kind of sexist bias I’ve been fighting against all my life.”

Stephen Abootman, head of the World Canadian Bureau (WGA) promises that Canada won’t take the American invasion lying down. Or perhaps it will. “We’ll strike,” he says flatly. “Canada is not to be trifled with.”

It appears that as a result of American electoral politics, the U.S. and Canada are on a collision course. Americans plan to move by the millions to Canada, a country whose leaders are determined to stop them. Clinton and Trump both clearly see Canada as a suitable booby prize for defeat in November. A delightful, self-effacing and apologetic country seems doomed to fall.

James Picht is the Senior Editor for Communities Politics. He teaches economics and Russian at the Louisiana Scholars' College in Natchitoches, La. After earning his doctorate in economics, he spent several years doing economic development work in Moscow and the new independent states of the former Soviet Union for the U.S. government, the Asian Development Bank, and as a private contractor. He has also worked in Latin America, the former USSR and the Balkans as an educator, teaching courses in economics and law at universities in Ukraine and at finance ministries throughout the region. He has been writing at the Communities since 2009.